Beyond Internet security to risk management

December 16, 2010

Our Friend Unfairly Maligned in London's Court

Many of you are concerned as am I about our friend who
has been hauled into court in London and unfairly
maligned for the "crime" of distributing some government
communications that he got from an anonymous source.
I know our friend also has been a bit playful out of wedlock,
and even had a son that way, but I don't see what that
has to do with the matter at hand.

Into what companies will the fabricator of this iniquity hereafter go with
an unembarrassed face, or with any semblance of the honest intrepidity
of virtue?
Men will watch him with a jealous eye &em; they will hide their papers from him,
and lock up their escritoires.
Having hitherto aspired after fame by his writings,
he will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called
a man of letters...

We know him as Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard, printer, diplomat,
and one of the fathers of his country.
This was the event that turned Franklin against the British Empire.
When he signed the treaty of Paris between France and America in 1782,
he wore the same suit he wore when Alexander Wedderburn maligned him before
George III's Privy Council in 1774.

Julian Assange is not Benjamin Franklin.
Yet he stands accused of the same "crime" and is maligned for the same personal
pecadilloes as did Benjamin Franklin.
History will vindicate Assange and Wikileaks just as it has vindicated Franklin.
Wikileaks will be more influential than Poor Richards Almanac.

Jared Diamond: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or SucceedThe author examines societies from the smallest (Tikopia) to the largest (China) and why they have succeeded or failed, where failure has included warfare, poverty, depopulation, and complete extinction. He thought he could do this purely through examining how societies damaged their environments, but discovered he also had to consider climate change, hostile neighbors, trading partners, and reactions of the society to all of those, including re-evaluating how the society's basic suppositions affect survival in changed conditions.